SURVIVORS MEMORIAL: FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION
Remarks by Dean Rotbart
April 27, 2014:
The official theme of this year’s Survivors Memorial is “Reflections from the Past and Present.”
By right, it should read, “Reflections from the Past and Present, …and on the Future.”
We are here today to honor the survivors of the Shoah, and to remember and pay tribute to those who were slaughtered.
The Holocaust victims whose family and friends still remember and cherish them are – sadly – few compared to the large number of those who were murdered – and whose names and faces are lost to history.
This year we will mark the 75th anniversary of the start of WWII. Today, however, even as we commemorate the past, I ask that we also peer forward 25 years – to September 2039 – the 100th anniversary.
We are as close to 2039 as we are to 1989.
What happened in 1989?
Twenty-five years passes in the blink of an eye.
With Hashem’s blessings, what can we expect in 2039?
Cameron and Isabella Zall – the children of Talia Zall, one of today’s speakers, and the grandchildren of Jack Wilner, a Holocaust survivor also with us today - will no longer be 14 and 6 in 2039. They will be 39 and 31 years old.
Tana Rosenberg – who so ably chaired last year’s event and is busily preparing for her daughter Haley’s Bat Mitzvah next week, will see Haley blossom into a 37-year-old women – and G-d willing, mother by 2039.
Talya and I have two children, and my brother Harley and his wife Sara, have three. Today, the oldest of their generation, Matt, is 26. In 2039, he’ll be 51. My daughter, Avital, the youngest of the cousins, is currently 17. In 2039, she’ll be 42.
We who are here today owe it to these children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – as guardians of the memories of Survivors and Victims – to bequeath to them the tools and the institutions to help them carry forward our mission: To Remember, To Honor, To Educate and To Act.
As the representative on today’s program of the 2nd generation, please allow me a few minutes To Remember, To Honor, To Educate and To Act.
To Remember:
There were four Holocaust Survivors, each of blessed memory, who impacted my life the most.
My father, Max – Motek – Rotbart, was alone among his nuclear family in surviving the war and internment – beginning at age 16 – at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and other camps.
To earn a living in America, Dad sold fruit and vegetables door-to-door. From those cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes, he and my mother, Helen – who I am blessed to have here with us today, sent Harley and me to good universities – Dad’s formal education stopped in the 8th grade. Harley became a pediatrician, medical researcher, and author. I became a writer, broadcaster and entrepreneur.
Our children are – or are on course – to be a lawyer, a psychologist, a teacher and two still-to-be decided. Grandpa Max would have been unbearably proud to know each one of them.
My Aunt and Uncle – Betty and Abe Jacobs – Yadja and Avram, came together after the war and rebuilt their decimated lives and families. Their children, my cousins Dr. Alex (and Meryl) Jacobs and Mari (and Jack) Kimmel, have eight children and 26 grandchildren combined – each and every one of them is a precious member of the third and fourth generations – all blessed with a strong Jewish neshama.
My father’s life-long friend, Cwi Jacuby of Brooklyn, passed away this past November. Dad and Cwi met in the concentration camps, helped one another survive, and became closer than brothers. In the Summer of 2001 – almost two decades after my father died - Cwi and members of his family returned with me to Poland and Auschwitz, so I could see first-hand where my father had lived, suffered and survived. Cwi’s legacy includes three children, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
From those four Holocaust survivors (Dad, Cwi, Betty and Abe) – tortured, starving, bereft of family, homeless, physically weak and emotionally ravaged, have risen 57 descendants… and still counting.
[Although I did not meet them until I was an adult, my wife’s parents, Liliane – of blessed memory, and David – both French Jews – were Holocaust victims as well. Talya’s aunt, Regine, was murdered at Auschwitz.]
We all remember…
To Honor:
When I began preparing my remarks for today, I thought it would be nice to mention the names of other Holocaust Survivor families with whom I grew up on Denver’s West Side.
My closest friends as a child included second generation members Joel Susel on Winona; Bill Gutman on Xavier; and Saul Zaterman on Raleigh.
But as I thought about my neighborhood, the Hebrew Educational Alliance – where our family attended, and my classmates at Colfax Elementary, I realized – in a truly profound way – just how many Holocaust Survivor families surrounded me in my youth.
As I began listing them – and asked my family and friends to help jog my memory – the roster of names grew longer and longer… and longer.
There are now more than 150 family names on the list – which is no longer mine, but all of ours.
You can find the list at HolocaustFamilies.com, where you can also add missing names.
In addition, at HolocaustRegistry.com, you’ll find a form that anyone can use to post memories about the Survivors who made their way to Colorado.
To Educate:
My son Maxwell and I co-host the weekly audio program Radio Chavura. One of Radio Chavura’s primary goals is educate our audience – both Jews and non-Jews – about our people and our faith, especially Holocaust Remembrance.
On today’s program, which you can hear online at Chavura.com, we interview filmmaker Richard Krevolin – who in conjunction with this year’s Yom HaShoah, is releasing a full-length documentary about an amazing, life-affirming theater group that performed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II.
Richard poured his heart and soul – not to mention his credit cards – into this documentary, which is well worth screening.
Richard told Maxwell and me that he hopes this film – which has an upbeat message – will help counter what he describes as society’s Holocaust Fatigue or Holocaust Exhaustion.
Can you imagine? Could our parents or grandparents ever imagine?
The world in 2014 is tired of hearing about the Holocaust. Tired of being confronted with its inhumanity and its lessons.
Our need to educate and prepare our children, our neighbors, our community, and our elected representatives has never been more compelling:
To Act:
To Remember, To Honor and To Educate Are Vital. But our responsibility – our obligation – our devotion to those who lived and died in the Shoah is greater still. We have a moral duty to Act.
What must we do to pass forward a clear history and understanding of the Holocaust to Cameron, and Isabella, and Haley, and her brother Ryan, and Maxwell, and Avital and all of the other 3rd, and 4th, and 5th generation survivors?
The vanguard of Holocaust Remembrance is our Jewish day schools.
The children who graduate from Hillel Academy, Denver Academy of Torah, Denver Jewish Day School, Beth Jacob High School and Yeshiva Toras Chaim will be equipped for the world of 2039 – and prepared to carry forward the mission of the Survivors Memorial which brings us together today.
Whether or not you have children or grandchildren enrolled in a local Jewish day school – it is our community responsibility as Holocaust families to generously support these schools and encourage as many families as possible to send their children to them.
Yes, we need to support many other Jewish and secular causes as well. No doubt.
But the true perpetuation of the memories and lessons of the Holocaust – and the Jewish people as a whole – rests with our children and grandchildren, and the knowledge that they will be taught well their heritage and their responsibilities.
By right, it should read, “Reflections from the Past and Present, …and on the Future.”
We are here today to honor the survivors of the Shoah, and to remember and pay tribute to those who were slaughtered.
The Holocaust victims whose family and friends still remember and cherish them are – sadly – few compared to the large number of those who were murdered – and whose names and faces are lost to history.
This year we will mark the 75th anniversary of the start of WWII. Today, however, even as we commemorate the past, I ask that we also peer forward 25 years – to September 2039 – the 100th anniversary.
We are as close to 2039 as we are to 1989.
What happened in 1989?
- The Berlin Wall Fell
- Mikhail Gorbachev was Time’s Man of the Year
- The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred
- And comedian Jerry Seinfeld premiered his television show.
Twenty-five years passes in the blink of an eye.
With Hashem’s blessings, what can we expect in 2039?
Cameron and Isabella Zall – the children of Talia Zall, one of today’s speakers, and the grandchildren of Jack Wilner, a Holocaust survivor also with us today - will no longer be 14 and 6 in 2039. They will be 39 and 31 years old.
Tana Rosenberg – who so ably chaired last year’s event and is busily preparing for her daughter Haley’s Bat Mitzvah next week, will see Haley blossom into a 37-year-old women – and G-d willing, mother by 2039.
Talya and I have two children, and my brother Harley and his wife Sara, have three. Today, the oldest of their generation, Matt, is 26. In 2039, he’ll be 51. My daughter, Avital, the youngest of the cousins, is currently 17. In 2039, she’ll be 42.
We who are here today owe it to these children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – as guardians of the memories of Survivors and Victims – to bequeath to them the tools and the institutions to help them carry forward our mission: To Remember, To Honor, To Educate and To Act.
As the representative on today’s program of the 2nd generation, please allow me a few minutes To Remember, To Honor, To Educate and To Act.
To Remember:
There were four Holocaust Survivors, each of blessed memory, who impacted my life the most.
My father, Max – Motek – Rotbart, was alone among his nuclear family in surviving the war and internment – beginning at age 16 – at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and other camps.
To earn a living in America, Dad sold fruit and vegetables door-to-door. From those cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes, he and my mother, Helen – who I am blessed to have here with us today, sent Harley and me to good universities – Dad’s formal education stopped in the 8th grade. Harley became a pediatrician, medical researcher, and author. I became a writer, broadcaster and entrepreneur.
Our children are – or are on course – to be a lawyer, a psychologist, a teacher and two still-to-be decided. Grandpa Max would have been unbearably proud to know each one of them.
My Aunt and Uncle – Betty and Abe Jacobs – Yadja and Avram, came together after the war and rebuilt their decimated lives and families. Their children, my cousins Dr. Alex (and Meryl) Jacobs and Mari (and Jack) Kimmel, have eight children and 26 grandchildren combined – each and every one of them is a precious member of the third and fourth generations – all blessed with a strong Jewish neshama.
My father’s life-long friend, Cwi Jacuby of Brooklyn, passed away this past November. Dad and Cwi met in the concentration camps, helped one another survive, and became closer than brothers. In the Summer of 2001 – almost two decades after my father died - Cwi and members of his family returned with me to Poland and Auschwitz, so I could see first-hand where my father had lived, suffered and survived. Cwi’s legacy includes three children, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
From those four Holocaust survivors (Dad, Cwi, Betty and Abe) – tortured, starving, bereft of family, homeless, physically weak and emotionally ravaged, have risen 57 descendants… and still counting.
[Although I did not meet them until I was an adult, my wife’s parents, Liliane – of blessed memory, and David – both French Jews – were Holocaust victims as well. Talya’s aunt, Regine, was murdered at Auschwitz.]
We all remember…
To Honor:
When I began preparing my remarks for today, I thought it would be nice to mention the names of other Holocaust Survivor families with whom I grew up on Denver’s West Side.
My closest friends as a child included second generation members Joel Susel on Winona; Bill Gutman on Xavier; and Saul Zaterman on Raleigh.
But as I thought about my neighborhood, the Hebrew Educational Alliance – where our family attended, and my classmates at Colfax Elementary, I realized – in a truly profound way – just how many Holocaust Survivor families surrounded me in my youth.
As I began listing them – and asked my family and friends to help jog my memory – the roster of names grew longer and longer… and longer.
There are now more than 150 family names on the list – which is no longer mine, but all of ours.
You can find the list at HolocaustFamilies.com, where you can also add missing names.
In addition, at HolocaustRegistry.com, you’ll find a form that anyone can use to post memories about the Survivors who made their way to Colorado.
To Educate:
My son Maxwell and I co-host the weekly audio program Radio Chavura. One of Radio Chavura’s primary goals is educate our audience – both Jews and non-Jews – about our people and our faith, especially Holocaust Remembrance.
On today’s program, which you can hear online at Chavura.com, we interview filmmaker Richard Krevolin – who in conjunction with this year’s Yom HaShoah, is releasing a full-length documentary about an amazing, life-affirming theater group that performed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II.
Richard poured his heart and soul – not to mention his credit cards – into this documentary, which is well worth screening.
Richard told Maxwell and me that he hopes this film – which has an upbeat message – will help counter what he describes as society’s Holocaust Fatigue or Holocaust Exhaustion.
Can you imagine? Could our parents or grandparents ever imagine?
The world in 2014 is tired of hearing about the Holocaust. Tired of being confronted with its inhumanity and its lessons.
Our need to educate and prepare our children, our neighbors, our community, and our elected representatives has never been more compelling:
- If we forget the Holocaust, then our ability to recognize the threat that Iran poses to Israel and Western Civilization is greatly diminished.
- If we forget the Holocaust, then our understanding of how evil the anti-Semitic BDS movement is, and what harm it portends to Israel and world Jewry, is impaired.
- If we forget the Holocaust, we forget the horrors of 9/11 and the ongoing menace of Islamic fundamentalism, where Jews are merely the first targets of obliteration.
- If we forget the Holocaust, we give license to genocides against other peoples of the world, such as we’ve witnessed in Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur.
- If we forget the Holocaust, we forget ourselves – who we are, where we came from – and where our destiny lies.
To Act:
To Remember, To Honor and To Educate Are Vital. But our responsibility – our obligation – our devotion to those who lived and died in the Shoah is greater still. We have a moral duty to Act.
What must we do to pass forward a clear history and understanding of the Holocaust to Cameron, and Isabella, and Haley, and her brother Ryan, and Maxwell, and Avital and all of the other 3rd, and 4th, and 5th generation survivors?
The vanguard of Holocaust Remembrance is our Jewish day schools.
The children who graduate from Hillel Academy, Denver Academy of Torah, Denver Jewish Day School, Beth Jacob High School and Yeshiva Toras Chaim will be equipped for the world of 2039 – and prepared to carry forward the mission of the Survivors Memorial which brings us together today.
Whether or not you have children or grandchildren enrolled in a local Jewish day school – it is our community responsibility as Holocaust families to generously support these schools and encourage as many families as possible to send their children to them.
Yes, we need to support many other Jewish and secular causes as well. No doubt.
But the true perpetuation of the memories and lessons of the Holocaust – and the Jewish people as a whole – rests with our children and grandchildren, and the knowledge that they will be taught well their heritage and their responsibilities.
